"The monad is not the man; it is not the soul; for neither the man nor the soul can in any wise be considered to be pure spirit or pure consciousness. The monad is the ultimate source, nevertheless, of all that we as individuals are. Each one of us is his own essential or spiritual monad. The monad is like a spiritual sun at the root of our being, continuously, from beginning to ending of our great manvantaric period, pouring forth streams of intelligence and life-substance, which produce by their interacting energies the various foci of consciousness, and which are the offspring, so to say, of the parent monad."